POST OFFICE
(Contd.)
254 83.9
that with our modern air mail service, of about two weeks' transit, the progress of the past century is well emphasised.
Several other examples might be quoted of the old routing and time taken in carriage of mails. For example, there is a reference to a mail from Sydney to London, despatched by the barque "Josephine," dated Sydney September 11, and received in Hong Kong on November 2, 1847. If it took another two months to London, we have an Australia to England service via Hong Kong, occupying nearly four months!
Correspondence in December 1847 shows that mails to New York from Hong Kong went via London, the days of Trans-Pacific conveyance coming much later. Letters to Australia from India were also routed via Hong Kong, as shown by complaints regarding delay made in 1848.
That the Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation Company had the earliest contract for mail services is evident from the oldest records available in the Post Office archives. There are several such references, particularly in 1849. In 1850 mention is made of the regular conveyance of mails between Hong Kong and Shanghai by the P. and O. Co's. vessel "Lady Mary Wood."
In October 1848 the correspondence indicates that firms in Hong Kong already had private boxes at the Post Office and coolies were sent to take delivery as soon as they had been sorted, much as they do to-day.
The conveyance of letters was, until regular mail steamers came into the picture towards the close of the past century, a rather haphazard affair. We have already seen that sailing ships and steamers were employed, probably whenever such happened to be available, so that time of transit was irregular. In the very early days it even became necessary to employ British warships for the purpose.
On August 3, 1847, the Postmaster addresses the Secretary to the Admiral, stating that having heard that H.M.S. Vulture is leaving for Amoy the following day, he would be pleased to know the time of the ship's departure, so that the mail for Amoy could be made up. Then, at a time when there was much complaint about the detention of mails aboard various ships (a matter which will be discussed in another instalment of this series), we find the Postmaster writing to the Captain of H.M.S. Inflexible, in April 1849, asking for an explanation why some letters which the warship had brought from Shanghai were delivered direct "to certain mercantile firms", instead of going to the Post Office, this having been "to the serious detriment of the local Post Office Revenue." It will be seen that the absence of regular mail-carrying vessels and the payment of postage rates after delivery could lead to actual free carriage of packets, a matter which must be reserved for another article.
Brief notice might be taken, however, of certain improvements and amenities introduced as the years went by. In March 1852, for instance, there is a reference in the records to the increased postal traffic, and by the P. and O. Company, the "Erin" and "Lady Mary Wood" running between Hong Kong and Calcutta and conveying the English mails on that stage of their journey.
In March 1859 a letter from the General Post Office in London refers to the inauguration of the first mail to Japan, forwarded from England either via Hong Kong and Shanghai or via Hong Kong direct to Japan, as occasion offered. Soon afterwards the P. and O. Co. opened the first regular service from China to Japan (Nagasaki) by "steam mail-carrying vessel."